The Late Mortimer Smith
The Late Mortimer Smith is the seventh episode of the ninth season of the animated series Rick and Morty. It originally aired on Fox on July 29, 2010. In the episode, Morty attempts to make it on time to a birthday dinner date for Jessica. He is sidetracked by Rick, Summer and Bender, who force him to test out Rick's upgraded time machine, which only goes forward in time. After overshooting and thus going forward to the year 10,000 AD, they must keep traveling forward in time until a backwards time machine has been invented. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Peter Avanzino. The episode was met with critical acclaim from critics and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 2011. In 2013, fans ranked it the fourth best episode in the history of the series. Plot Morty and Jessica's growing relationship is marred by Morty's constant tardiness. After arriving late for school because of watching Bender, who was having sex with a woman and was punished by Beth and Jerry for that, Morty is determined to make it up to Jessica by skipping a party hosted by Bird Person and meeting Jessica for a birthday dinner date at "Cavern on the Green," a fancy restaurant situated in a deep cave with naturally occurring stalagmites. As Jessica prepares to leave for the date, Rick forces him to test his newly invented one-way time machine, which is only able to travel to the future (to prevent changing the past and the creation of paradoxes), by moving one minute forward in time. As Rick, Bender, Morty and Summer prepare the machine, Morty records a message in a video birthday card for Jessica, apologizing for being one minute late and explaining the situation. As he is about to finish, Rick accidentally pulls the lever too far, sending them forward into the year 10,000 AD. During the trip, Morty loses the card in the time stream. Meanwhile, a nuclear accident at an party kills all but the host, leading Jessica, who thinks Morty and the others had gone there, to believe the four are now dead. Morty, Bender, Summer and Rick decide that their only hope of returning to the 21st century is to continue forward in time until they reach a period in which a time machine that can travel to the past has been invented. However, they are repeatedly sidetracked during their travels, encountering numerous periods of Earth civilization (at one point managing to find a time period populated by beautiful women who have mastered backwards time-travel, but are sent forward by an angered Bender, who was not let off in an era where robots were conquering humanity), until they arrive at the year One Billion when Earth is barren and all life extinct. Back in the 21st century, Jessica becomes the owner of a successful company, but still harbors some nostalgia and hurt toward Morty for standing her up before his "death". In the year 2050, she finds the lost birthday card as it emerges from the time stream and learns that Morty did not mean to abandon her. She goes to the empty Cavern on the Green and fires at the ceiling in a way that results in mineral water dripping to form stalagmites that create a message Morty discovers one billion years later, reading that although their time together was short, it was the best time of her life. Having lost their opportunity to return home, Morty, Bender, Summer and Rick resign themselves to going to the end of time. After the last existing proton decays, they are amazed to discover that the now empty universe undergoes another Big Bang, and furthermore that it replicates the same universe and its exact events, instead of having unique inhabitants and history. They realize that they can continue forward in time and eventually reach the moment that they left in the new copy of the universe. They succeed after overshooting their first attempt, though the new universe is about 10-feet lower than the previous one, causing the time machine to crush their duplicates in the new universe to death as they enter their machine (avoiding a time travel paradox). Morty rushes to meet Jessica and manages to make it to their date on time. After dinner, Morty apologizes for losing his birthday card to her, but Jessica dismisses it and tells him that she will always remember their time together. Bender and Roger can be seen under the bridge they stand on, burying the bodies of the dead duplicates.